


Eleven ways X2 and two ways X3 didn't go

by smaragdbird



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-31
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 13:16:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird





	1. Part One

1.Screams in the darkness

In retro perspective John wasn't sure what had woken him: The screaming or the pin in his ears and head. In the end it didn't matter because no matter what woke him, it saved his life.

He had never been exposed to Siryn's scream before and he was glad if never had to again.

When he had woken up, he had done what his instinct always told him: garb your weapon, or what it had been in the last years: grab your lighter!

A short look over to Bobby's bed confirmed his suspicions that Bobby had not returned from his nightly ice cream trip of guilt and therefore had to be somewhere in the house.

John sprinted out of the room, not bothering with additional clothing or shoes. His gut told him to run so he ran.

The hallway was filled with panicked mutant kids and Piotr who tried to calm and herd them together. John knew like every other inhabitant f the mansion where the escape tunnels where and when he ran down the stairs he yelled at a girl to go back upstairs, but the girl grabbed his T-Shirt and dragged him with her. He wasn't really sure what was happening here, but when she screamed at him, he recognised Rogue.

'Let me go.' He cried but her grip on his T-Shirt was merciless.

'They have them, John, and they want us all. They shot Logan and they have Bobby, and Siryn...' She told him while she dragged him further up the stairs.

'Who are they?' he could finally loose her grip on his shirt and kept in step with her.

'I don't know. Soldiers. Maybe the government, maybe …' She paused for a moment and a horrified look manifested in her eyes.

'What?' He asked annoyed, not sure whether he was annoyed because she stopped walking or because she stopped talking.

'Magneto.'

As if to emphasize her argument, above them windows exploded. Glass splinters flew through he air, Rogue screamed and John was pretty sure that something hit his head, but he didn't care, couldn't care right now because their escape passageway was blocked. They were upstairs and that meant he and Rogue couldn't join Piotr and the others. John made a split decision and ducked into the next hallway with Rogue at his heels.

'Where are you going?'

She hadn't been here as long as he had and didn't know that there was another tunnel that didn't lead out in the woods but in the garage, not a perfect plan but the best they had.

His vision began to blur at the edges when he lead her through the cold and wet tunnel, with little stones poking in their feet and something sticky that ran down his neck.

Next to the metal steps that lead to the hatch, which opened into the garage, he leaned against the wall and took a deep breath.

'John..'

'Go up first. I need a break.'

'No, John, you're bleeding.' She pointed at his neck , or maybe at his head, he couldn't quite make that out, but he touched his neck with his hand and when he looked at it, it was bright red.

'Shit. One-eye will hate me when I get his beloved car all bloody.' And despite everything Rogue grinned a bit and he grinned back.

'Let's go then.' He said, feeling dizzily, climbed up the steps and more or less crawled into the garage floor.

Rogue, careful not to touch his bare skin, gripped him under his shoulders and practically hauled him on the back seat of some car. The roar of the engine was the last thing he heard before he passed out.

When he woke up again, the sun shone, his head hurt like hell and in front of him, Rogue had curled up in the passenger seat. Her white and dark strands fell over her face an she snored lightly. If he hadn't been sleeping with her boyfriend and if she had been touchable, john was pretty sure he would have made a move on her, but now she held no temptation. Despite having a long time affair with Bobby, which she of course didn't know, she was some kind of friend and the were in this together, so he didn't needed to complicate things more as they were.

He touched his head and felt the makeshift bandage around his head. It hurt like hell but at least his vision was clear.

'Wake up.' He told Rogue maybe a bit louder than necessary.

'You're feeling better?' she asked after yawning and stretching to wake up.

'Yes. So, where are we?'

'Somewhere in Connecticut.' She answered and shivered. The heat was running, but it was still cold. No surprise since they had October already.

'We need to find the others.' She said. John withstood the urge to roll his eyes and replied:

'And where do we begin to look? Or did Piotr send you a postcard where he took off to?'

'So, what's your plan? Sitting around and doing nothing?'

'We sell the car, get some clothes and something to eat and then we can make plans.'

She nodded and john was not surprised. She was tough, a survivor, just like he and unlike Bobby. Maybe that was what had drawn them both towards Bobby: his innocence, his believe in goodness. The thought of Bobby held a sting. John wondered what they would do to him and he hoped it wasn't experimenting. Maybe they only had wanted the professor and since he hadn't been there, they had taken the hostages. John sincerely hoped so. He didn't want to imagine a broken and twisted Frankenstein version of Bobby that hated everyone.

'I drive.' He said. He needed to do something to distract himself from his thoughts and the headache.

Selling the car proved to be disturbingly easy. They told the customer that they had eloped and now wanted to get rid of the car, because their parents could track them with it. The woman was very understanding and gave them three thousand dollars for it.

The first thing they bought with that money was proper clothing and the second a warm meal at the Italian restaurant next to the shop.

Over spaghetti(Rogue) and pizza(John) they argued what to do next.

'We could return to mansion. They have enough hostages, no matter whether they want to blackmail the professor or to do experiments.'

'And then we just wait there until everyone returns, too or maybe not.' John replied.

'Come one, Rogue, you saw them. What were they, who commanded them? There has to be something.'

'Logan was afraid of him.' She remembered.

'Who?'

'That man. He was not a soldier, he was older, cold blooded. He knew Logan, knew about his skeleton.'

'That's something. Wolverine was gone, where was he the last weeks. Come on, Rogue,, I know that you know where he was.'

'Alkali Lake. The professor had send him there, but John, we don't know if there is anything there or anyone. I think we should return to the mansion. They will come back eventually.'

'Maybe there is no one to come back except us and Piotr with the others. And Piotr won't return until he's sure that the mansion is absolutely safe. The man looks scary but is as soft as a marshmallow at heart. So, do you have any alternative to Alkali Lake?'

'We could wait.'

'For hell's sake, they have Bobby and Wolverine and who knows who else they got or what they're going to do with them. You said the old guy knew Wolverine. What if he does additional experiments? We're the only one's who can maybe save them and all you want to do is sit here and wait!'

'You always gave a them about the people around you, why the sudden change of mind?'

'You don't know that well.'

'I touched Bobby. I know you like he knows you.'

'I have no idea what you're talking about.'

'You know very well what I'm talking about. Or did you really think that I wouldn't have noticed that you're sleeping with him, even without touching him? I'm not stupid, John.'

'No? But you're stupid enough to think that you can make Wolverine jealous with Bobby falling in love with you. But no matter what you do with Bobby, he will always return to me, always.'

'Then why don't you just do it? Are you that afraid of love that you're rather his side leap than his boyfriend? Wake up John, the whole I-ve-got-a-dysfunctional-family-and-therefore-am-afraid-of-relationships is so old-fashioned.'

'You're the right one to give me a lecture about relationships Miss I-can-never-have-sex-but-have-a-crush-on-a-guy-that-practically-reeks-sex.'

They both stared angrily at each other. John's hand opened and closed his lighter but he didn't draw a flame. He was not as impulsive as people believed him to be and he was certainly not stupid enough to attack another mutant in a public area in broad daylight, when he had just survived a government attack on his home. And aside from this, the painkillers were wearing off and with the headache it was hard to concentrate on anything but the pain that seemed to split his head open.

'Fine.' He said: 'Let's draw lots what we're going to do.'

He took out a coin.

'Heads or tails?

'Heads.'

He flipped the coin into the air and let it fall on the table. The coin rotated around itself and then laid down.

Head.

'Damn!' John cursed and Rogue didn't look too satisfied, too.

'So, two tickets to Westchester then.' He said mock politely: 'Does the lady wish to travel first or second class?'

Slightly amazed at the speed John could overlook their argument, Rogue didn't answer. John rolled his eyes.

'First class and flip the coin again. We have to see who of us will tell Professor Summers that we sold his car.'

John groaned. This would be a hell of a waiting.

2.4am

When the windows splintered and Wolverine killed the man, Bobby could have looked everywhere but he looked at the kitchen clock. 4am. Exactly 4am.

24 hours later he looked at his watch, well technically it was Ronny's watch but his brother had already called the police on him without knowing that Bobby took his watch, so Bobby figured that it didn't matter anymore, and shivered. One of John's favourite bands had a song called 4am. The song was about losing the best friend, again technically John wasn't his best friend, well okay he was but he was a bit more than 'only' his best friend, and Bobby wondered whether John was a prophetic. With John you could never know, he always held something in the backhand, so he got always everything what he wanted, well maybe not always since Bobby didn't believe that John had wanted to get captured by this Stryker whoever he was. The professors said that he was responsible for Wolverine's adamantium skeleton. Bobby shivered at that thought. If a man was merciless and cold-blooded enough to do that to an immortal man, he didn't want to imagine what he could do with John.

Bobby approached the small fire he, Rogue and that blue guy, Kurt, had started but it didn't warm him. It was too cold. Bobby had always suspected that John's fire burned hotter than ordinary fire but this wasn't the way he had wanted to get his suspicions confirmed.

'You should try to catch some sleep, Bobby.' Professor Grey said gently and sat down next to him. She looked as tired and exhausted as he was, so he didn't get up but remained where he was: a little too close to the fire for a normal person.

'He's going to be okay.' She said and when Bobby looked not surprised she said: 'I didn't read your thoughts.'

He merely shrugged. She didn't know what Stryker would do with John and what not, so her words held no comfort for him and certainly didn't chase out the gruesome imagines he had in his mind.

'You don't know that.'

'No, I don't but I think that John is intelligent and has enough survival instinct not to get into additional trouble or try to get out on his own. He cares more for other people than he wants to make believe.'

Bobby laughed humourlessly.

'If they drug him and decide to try something on him like they did with Wolverine, it doesn't matter what he does or can do. Or if they threaten the other children, John will do something stupid. I know him. He always rushes into things when he loses his temper.' His sentences turned more and more into sobbed choking.

'He cares too much. He's nearly over protective and still thinks that he's weak because he can't create fire or maybe he can and doesn't know because he thinks he can't an if they can do something so cruel to Wolverine than they can dissect John without the slightest guilt.' He had spoken very fast so he wouldn't begin to cry but the image of John, broken and hollow, without his eyes burning with emotion but blank and cold, threatened to gain the upper hand.

Jean laid a soothing hand on his shoulder. She didn't say anything, couldn't say anything because she couldn't promise that nothing would happen to John, but he felt that he was not alone. They had Scott, too and she felt like he did and it felt comfortingly not to be alone.

'I'll go with you.' He told professor Munroe and the blue guy. Ororo made a move as if to protest but Jean send her a placating look and Ororo nodded.

'Fine, but when they have the children, you're the first one out of there.' Jean said sternly. Bobby nodded. As long as he had John back with him, he didn't care.

His heart raced fast as they entered the dam. He walked next to Kurt and the other man was just as nervous as he was, which was not calming but he tried his best to focus on John and not on the immediate threat of death.

To his surprise they made it into the control room without any problems. His stomach churned when he saw the surveillance images of the cell where the children where held prisoners. John was missing among them. Bobby felt panic dwell up in him. If John wasn't there…He fast checked the other monitors but none of them showed John. He was not the only one that had noticed that John wasn't in the base.

'Where's Pyro?' Asked Wolverine, who had also checked the surveillance monitors.

'He isn't here?' Was Ororo's reaction who also leaned over the monitors.

'Are there rooms that are not shown here?' Bobby asked Mystique in barely concealed panic.

'Three, lowest level, just above the turbines.' She said after taking a short look into the files on the computer.

'I'll go. John is there.'

'You're sure you can do what you have to do?' Wolverine asked.

Bobby create a long, sharp blade with his hand and put all of his determination in his voice and his eyes as he replied:

'I am.'

He went deeper and deeper into the innards of the dam. It was cold down here, cold and damp. He briefly thought about Rogue, alone in the jet, waiting for them, any of them to return. He felt sorry for laving her alone but he knew she was okay. She didn't need him.

Finally he reached the last floor. So near the turbines he would have thought that it had to be noisy but the walls were practically soundproof. Must be handy, if you tortured someone, Bobby thought.

Three doors, three tries. He hoped like crazy that John was behind one of them, because if he was not…

Bobby froze the lock of the first door and smashed it, so he could open the door.

Nothing.

He had more luck with the second door. He could make out a body, laying against the opposite wall like a life-sized doll. Bobby quickly crossed the room and kneeled down next to the body. It was John and he breathed. He looked for injuries but couldn't find anything nut a few bruises around John's wrists, on his head and two tap wounds where they must have injected him with the tranquillisers.

Bobby let out a breath he hadn't been aware of and slung John's unconscious form over his shoulder's. Halfway through he door he collapsed in pain. A high, strident note tried to split his head apart, a thousand needles bit into his body and tore out his flesh with every movement.

It ended as suddenly as it had begun.

The pain, the note just stopped and everything was like it had been a mere minute before.

Bobby really didn't want to know what that had been, shouldered his best friend anew and hurried to get back to the others.

Dr. Grey died that morning but John woke up that evening with Bobby waiting at his bedside.

3\. We're in this together

The last thing Bobby remembered was the surprised face of Logan opposite him.

The last thing John remembered was the closing door behind Bobby before he had gone to sleep that evening.

The first thing Bobby did when he woke up was reaching for the tap wound on the back of his neck.

The first thing John did was reaching for his lighter which wasn't there.

When they opened their eyes the first thing they saw was each other, the second that they weren't in the mansion anymore but in a small room surrounded with the sleeping forms of some of their fellow students.

'John are you okay?'

'Of course, I'm just fucking fine, thank you Drake.'

'I was just being friendly to you.'

'And as usual you being 'just friendly' led us into a catastrophe.'

'You're saying that this is my fault?'

'I wouldn't be surprised if it where. Maybe your little girlfriend found out that you're not such a poster boy and decided to let us starve to death and everyone who saw her kidnapping us, too.'

'Your theory's bullshit.'

'You've got a better one?'

'Magneto?'

'Who is in jail.'

'Fine. The government?'

'Now you have a point. Maybe they want to make killers out of us.'

'You've seen way to much films, Johnny.'

'Again. You've got a better theory?'

'They re-established the reporting obligation or maybe they're interning all the mutants in the country. Maybe that's why the Professor and everyone else were gone tonight. They wanted to prevent the internment and failed.'

'And I've seen to many films.' John rolled his eyes.

'It's at least more plausible than you're theory.' Bobby replied but John didn't answer. He had closed his eyes and his fingers twitched as he felt something between them that Bobby couldn't see.

Which was nearer to the truth than Bobby would have thought. John could not only control fire he could also feel it as long as it was in a certain radius around him. It didn't matter whether it was an open fire or only a spark from a dysfunctional electronic device, if it was there he could fell it and he could control it.

He had never told anyone because normally he didn't need his sixths sense and also, how could he have explained to anyone how it was to perceive something without using his eyes, or ears or any normal sensory organ at all.

But is time there was no fire he could feel, nothing at all.

'John?' Bobby was always scared if he id this too long.

'No fire, you'll have to get us out of here.'

Bobby looked around. The walls were massive and there was no visible door. He touched one of the metal bars that were embedded in the walls and immediately recoiled.

'That's a live wire.'

'Damn.'

Bobby kneeled down next to a girl John hadn't even known lived in the mansion. He checked her pulse, then breathed out relieved.

'They're only sleeping.' He sat back down next to John.

'Do you think they will look for us?'

John shrugged.

'Maybe they can't.'

'Huh?'

'If this is really the work of the government then maybe they can't get us out. You know them, always playing by the rules.'

'Glad you're looking so positively in our future, Johnny.'

'I'm being realistic, Drake. And if you would really believe that the world is such a good place then you would've told your parents the truth.'

'It's your life's aspiration to be a pain in the ass, isn't it?'

'Someone's got to make sure that you don't decorate the whole world with your little ice flowers and paint it pink, just because you think it's prettier that way.'

'I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer.'

'You just did.'

'You have to have the last say in anything, haven't you?'

'It's not my fault that I'm under your bad influence.'

'You're still aware of the fact that we're in this together, so that it might be a bad thing to upset your ally?` John snorted at that.

'What you're going to do? Freeze me and all the children around us to death? I don't think so. And if someone has the right to play the pissed-of-by-your-behaviour-card than it be me, since you cheated on me with Rouge and not I on you.'

'Please, John…'

''Please, John' What? What do you want to tell me Bobby? That it was a mistake or maybe that I shouldn't put up such a fuss because it was all a game for you until The One came along?'

'Do we have to discuss that now?' Bobby asked weakly.

'We have time no and unlike usually you can't run away. So yes I think it's the perfect time for discussing our relationship.'

'What do you want me to say?'

'How about the truth, for once.'

There was along and heavy pause between them and only when Bobby dropped his eyes from John's face to the ground, he could begin to talk.

'I'm afraid. I've been afraid since I woke up and discovered that I had frozen over my alarm clock. Mutants was a taboo for my parents just like homosexuality, or at least we never talked about it. The morning I found out that I was a mutant too, I kind of saw my life flashing in front of my eyes: my family would desert me, my friends wouldn't recognize me on the street, and so on. My parents still don't know what I am and the thing with Rogue, well I guess that was my last attempt at normalcy. Doesn't work out though, I just can't you get out of my head. And to be honest I don't want you out of my head.' Bobby made a move as if to lean against one of the walls but John grabbed his arm before he touched it and yanked him back.

Bobby just let himself fall onto the ground, where John joined him and put an arm around him. His head leaned against Bobby's as he said:

'It's as you said: we're in this together.'


	2. Part Two

4\. Home sweet home

'Guys, we need to help him!' shrieked Rogue, stopping both Bobby and John in their running.

'He can manage on his own.' John put in, fixing his eyes on Bobby as did Rogue.

'Bobby!'

But he shook his head. She gave him a look that expressed disappointment, hurt and disbelief but didn't say anything, before she turned around.

John, however, mentally cheered, which must have shown n his face because Bobby said while they continued to run:

'Wipe that grin off your face. This wasn't about your or her.'

For John, it was.

They reached the garage without any complications. John decided against one of the fancy cars, though he regretted that but they were too flashy for an escape from the military.

He slid on the driver's seat and successfully hotwired the car.

'I'm not going to ask where you learned that.' Bobby commented dryly.

'I wouldn't have told you anyway.' John replied.

'So where are we going?'

'Storm said something about her and Doctor Grey being in Boston tonight.' Bobby told with an uneasy undertone in his voice. As John shot him an odd look, he replied defiantly:

'What?'

'Your family lives in Boston, don't they?' John asked without taking his eyes from the road.

'So?'

'We could stay there.'

'And what am I ought to tell them if I turn up at home in the middle of the semester in my sleeping clothes with my equally clothed boyfriend?'

'The truth?'

'It's not that easy.'

'The mansion is outed as an mutant school in the breakfast news anyway. I would tell them before they get it told by the TV.'

Bobby turned angrily at him:

'So mister good-advice why don't you tell how your parents did manage with your mutation?'

'They shrugged at it.' John grinned:' Until I torched by sister's hair for taking my shirt without asking.'

'What did they do?'

John shrugged:

'They didn't have to anything. I ran away on the same day.' He looked lost in thoughts for a moment but then his usual grin returned:' So Bobby, appreciate and learn from your master.'

Bobby doubled over laughing at John's cocky expression.

John parked the car in front of a nice one family house, which lay in a neighbourhood that reminded him of his own home.

He shuddered as his bare feet touched the asphalt, but followed Bobby into the house, while clicking his lighter.

'Don't burn anything.' Bobby reminded him, before he called: 'Mom? Dad? Ronnie? Are you home?' But no one answered.

'Come on, I'll find some clothes.' Bobby said and took two steps at once on the stairs.

Bobby's room was not that different from his side of their room in the mansion: snowboarding posters on the walls, tidy but still somehow chaotic, because Bobby's things were organized but he seemed to have an aversion to every cupboard that wasn't a wardrobe, since his stuff was cluttered over every surface in the whole room.

'Here.' Bobby pulled John from his contemplation of his room with a touch of his hand. In the other he held a brown long-sleeve shirt and a black sweat trousers. John pulled his shirt over his head and threw it on the floor.

'Maybe they're a bit too long.' Bobby blushed( for whatever reason) and the events of the last night finally fell into pace in John's head. He grabbed Bobby by his shirt and pressed his lips to his. Bobby was taken by surprise but he didn't fight the kiss. His hands threaded into john# hair and he pulled him closer as if that was possible.

The kiss was rough, hard and it had an feeling of finality in it. John knew that Bobby had made a decision.

His hands slid under Bobby shirt, over his chest, pressed against the skin. He wanted more, more and more of Bobby, everything but everything wasn't quite enough. One of Bobby's hands left its place in John's hair and slid down his spine underneath the waistband of his sleeping shorts and

A door opened well audible downstairs.

Bobby and John let go of each other rather unwilling, but Bobby smiled happily at John and gripped his hand tightly.

'Mom! Dad!' Bobby called as he and John went downstairs.

'Bobby!' His mother exclaimed shocked and surprised: 'Why are you not in school? And who's this boy?'

'This is John, he's from school.' Bobby made a short pause: 'I've got something to tell you'

They sat on the sofa, opposite Bobby's mother and father. His brother Ronny stood by the window.

'You have to understand, Bobby. We thought that you were on a school for gifted.' Bobby's father said.

'Bobby can make flowers of ice. That's more impressive than remembering the first 300 decimal places of pi.' John tossed in.

'Of course.' Bobby's father answered quickly and Bobby's mother said: 'We still love you, Bobby. It's only that this mutant problem is a bit…' she made a pause: 'Complicated. Especially now, when the military looks for you.'

Ronny practically ran out of the room. Bobby's mother looked sad.

'This is al my fault.' She sighed.

'Actually, they've discovered that males are the ones who carry the mutant gene and pass it on. So — it's his fault.' John pointed at Bobby's father and received a nudge in the ribs from Bobby.

'What? You know it's true.' He whispered furiously.

'That's not the point John.' Bobby argued back in a low voice: And cut that out.' He wrapped his hand around John's, which still snapped his lighter open and closed.

An awkward silence followed until Bobby's mother got up: 'Bobby, you could show your friend around until the lunch is ready. You two have to be hungry.'

They returned to Bobby's room but as they heard voices from downstairs. Bobby frowned but sat down on the stair and took John's free hand between his as he listened.

'There's something fishy going on.' That was Bobby's father.

'Will, he's still Bobby. He would never lie to us.'

'He lied to us about the school About what he and his friends are.'

'He never lied, he just didn't say everything. He wanted to protect us.'

'Fine, but do you believe his story? The military would not arrest children without a reason.'  
'He's our son. Do you want to extradite our son?'

'No, of course not. What do think of me, Madeline? I only said that I'm suspicious, not of Bobby but his friend. He doesn't like the kind of boy I want to see Bobby associate with.'  
'He's rather … self-conscious but that doesn't mean he's a bad boy. I think Bobby is responsible enough not to associate himself with the wrong people.'

'I'll keep an eye on him, though. I don't trust him.'

John tugged at Bobby's hands.

'Come on, Bobby, we should go.'

They tiptoed into Bobby's room. John closed the door behind them and watched Bobby silently as he punched a wall.

'Damn.' Bobby choked out and fell down on his bed. He looked so hurt and exhausted that it pained John to see him like that. Bobby was supposed to be happy and smiling all the time. He was supposed to believe in goodness and justice. He wasn't supposed to lie on his bed in his childhood-room with tears streaming down his face because his parents were afraid and suspicious of him.

John left his position at the door, crossed the room, sat down next to Bobby and wrapped his arms around him. He had never comforted anyone in is life but he remembered how his mother had done it and so he rocked Bobby in his arms and whispered soothingly to him, words he would never have sat in any other situation.

5.The silence that screams

Bobby was woken by the unnatural silence that surrounded him. The school was never silent and neither was John, whose snores could bring down walls and were one of the reasons why Kitty had moved in with Piotr. Not that Bobby would ever tell him that, he wasn't suicidal.

He opened his eyes only to close them immediately gain because the sun light hurt him and made the headache that came back with full force only worse. His neck hurt as if a bee had stung him there and the events of last night still were fuzzy, plus thinking made the headache grow.

'Bobby?' Someone asked. Bobby was pretty sure that the voice belonged to John but the noise made his head hurt and he winced.

'Welcome back to the living.' Bobby could see John smirk even though he couldn't really see him, but he knew that John was smirking. The rest was drowned out because Bobby covered his ears with his hands. He felt the mattress dip under additional weight and John removed his hands from his ears.

'How are you?'

'It hurts.' Bobby said in a pitiful voice. John sighed dramatically.

'You want some painkillers?'

'yes.'

After John had handed him three pills, a glass of water and waited for five minutes, Bobby finally felt able to open his eyes. He looked around. It was their room but the sun was up and the mansion was awfully quiet. He frowned something was wrong.

John looked awful: he had an nasty bruise on his forehead and several cuts all over his arms and face plus some dark stains on his t-shirt. Some of them were grime and some were dark red like dried blood. Bobby stared at John's chest.

'What happened yesterday night?'

'You can't remember?' Bobby shook his head.

'The military invaded school. Shot everyone they could find. Piotr managed to escape with most of the kids. You ran towards me through the crowd and yelled something. Then a window burst and you had that dart in your neck. I dragged you into a closet and waited until I was sure they were gone. You were unconscious the whole time.'

'You now something about the others?' About Rogue, wasn't spoken but Bobby could as well have said it.

'Nothing. We're on our own Bobby-boy.'

'But hey will return, right?'

'God, Bobby! Did that anaesthetic mess up your brain that much? I. Don't. Know.'

Bobby rolled his eyes. John apparently was fine.

'I'm going to take a shower.' He announced: 'Want to join me? No one's here, we could be as loud as we want.' John cocked his head suggestively.

'You only ever think about sex, don't you?'

'No, I don't. I was merely thinking about a back wash but you with your untouchable girlfriend have to be yearning for a good fuck.'

'John.' It sounded pained but John didn't react to that.

'She's hot. I'd do her.'

'You'd do everyone half-way good-looking, so that doesn't say much.' Bobby countered.

'Are you calling me a slut?' John loomed dangerously close over Bobby. Bobby grinned.

'I do.' That was a mistake. John may be smaller and lighter than Bobby but when his fingers attacked Bobby's stomach, Bobby was a laughing, squealing and helpless mass beneath him.  
'Sto...Stop, Jo…Johnny...please…stop.' Bobby managed to get out while John tickled him merciless.

'Say you're sorry.'

'No.'

'Say it.'

'I…m sorr..soryyyyy.' Bobby shrieked. John fell on the bed, next to him and grinned.

'That was unfair.' Bobby complained as soon as he could breathe normally again.

'All's fair in true love and war.' John replied. Bobby squirmed around so he could look at John and asked:

'What else did happen last night?'

'It doesn't matter.' John said sternly. He traced Bobby's bottom lip with his thumb. Bobby carefully took his hand between his own.

'I fucked up.' It felt like a confession even though he merely stated a fact. John shrugged.

'I'm not the one you've hurt.' But John was fire and fire wasn't known for decency. It didn't hide and neither did John's emotions. He couldn't lie, at least not when he was burning inside.

'I love her:' John made a movement as if he wanted to move away but Bobby held on tight:

'I need you. I need you like I need my lungs or my heart. You don't love your lungs or your heart. You take them for granted until suddenly something is wrong and you see how much you took for granted.'

John looked at him and he looked like he was debating with himself whether or not he should say something. In the end he did:

'I wanted to kill you.' He said: 'I swore to myself if I would ever saw you kissing her, risking your life just to be with her, I would kill you.'

They silently lay next to each other for a long time after that.

6\. The art of being nice

'Why are you such a jerk?' Asked boy number one furiously.

'Yeah, why're you such a jerk?' repeated his companion.

'Because I want to.' John grinned as he saw Bobby roll his eyes.

'Can I have a light?'

John flipped his lighter opened and draw a flame. He looked at it for a moment before he snapped his lighter shut.

'Sorry, guys, can't help you.' He laughed.

'John. Do you have to?'

'What? Oh, come on Bobby, I know you're getting excited.' John ignored the two idiots for a moment to give Bobby his most smug expression.

'I'm not getting excited. I just wanted to have a good time with you but you have to ruin everything, don't you?'

'I'm just saying you should loosen up…Hey!' The first guy had taken his lighter and lighted his cigarette with it, while standing behind his friend.

'You're not so cool now.' The second guy said and the first dared John with a drag of his cigarette. Bobby suppressed a sigh. He knew what his boyfriend would do now, but he was feeling eye to eye with John in that matter and didn't try to stop him.

A small grin spread over John's face, he blinked with one eye and before anyone could react the first guy was on fire. John laughed at the panicked reaction of the two idiots and Bobby, who would've maybe grinned if they weren't in a very public place and if he wasn't supposed to be the responsible one in this relationship, left his chair and spread ice over the fire to extinguish it. The guy's eyes went wide in shock and suddenly the scene froze completely.

'Nice trick, Iceman.' John commented and grabbed his lighter back.

'This wasn't me.' Bobby was slightly irritated. He looked around: the whole room was frozen in time except for John and him.

'No, that was me.' The Professor wheeled towards them. Bobby blushed in shame, but John didn't look the slightest bit concerned.

'And if you want to show off again, don't.' John still didn't look concerned but at least he also didn't look smug or self-satisfied anymore.

'…an attack on the president which was the work of one or more mutants..' the news cast announced. All three of them looked up to the screen.

'It's better if we're going now.' The professor said and neither boy protested.

After the return to the mansion, Bobby got the chance to spend some time with Rogue, who was very excited that Logan had called and promised her he'd be back today, and John got a talk with the Professor about proper behaviour outside the school, which left him annoyed and unnerved.

'If we bring up the world against us, they will take longer until they accept us as a part of their society.' John ranted as he came through the door of their room. Bobby laid on his bed and read a book. He didn't even look up.

'And you need to control yourself, Mr. Allerdyce or you may hurt someone you didn't intend to.' John huffed and clicked furiously with his lighter.

'He's right.' Was Bobby's uninterested comment on that matter. He had lived too long with John and knew him too well to discuss with him when it wasn't absolutely necessary.

'Where's your loyalty?' Asked John in hurt tone: 'Am I your boyfriend or is he?'

'You now, John. You're playing that boyfriend-card way to often to have any success with it anymore.' Bobby replied, still engrossed in his book.

Steps were heard that crossed the room and then John placed himself over Bobby's back.

'You always get you reward from me, though.' He purred. Bobby's reaction was moving his hand as if he wanted to wave away a fly.

'You're wasting your time, Johnny.' Bobby replied mildly amused: 'I'm going to read this book and nothing will distract me from it, not even you.'

'You want to bet on that?' John asked suggestively while his hand slipped underneath Bobby's shirt and his fingernails scraped over Bobby's stomach. But Bobby just laughed, shook his head and stood of the bed.

'Sorry, Johnny but some of us don't want to fail in literature.'

'What do mean with that?' pouted John: 'I'm top of the class in literature.'

'Of course.' Mocked Bobby.

'Hey!' John jumped off the bed and tackled bobby so he could pin him down on his own.

He straddled Bobby while he pinned his arms above his head.

'Distracting enough?' He asked and caressed Bobby's neck with his lips.

'It always has to be your way, hasn't it?'

'If you're hinting at the two jerks in the café…I know it turns you on when I'm playing the bad boy.' John whispered against Bobby's ear.

'Fuck me.' Bobby said hoarsely and true to John's word, yes he found it hot when John played the bad boy but hell if he would tell him that.

'I can do that.' John answered: 'Or I could be as mean as you've been to me and just ignore you.'

'You're sure you want to do that?' Bobby finally let go of his book and managed to get on hand free from John's grip, which he slipped downwards over his chest and underneath the waistband of his jeans. His eyes closed and he moaned.

'You're evil.' John grinned smugly and pressed his lips to Bobby's while his hand joined Bobby's free one.

In a few hours Bobby would sit in the kitchen and chat with Logan, while John would be fast asleep in their room and nothing extraordinary would happen.


	3. Part Three

7.Gone forever

The three of them sat silently in the jet. John played with his lighter, the constant click, click was the only noise in the room. Rogue shivered and pressed herself tighter against Bobby who took her hand. John rolled his eyes and stood up.

'I'm sick of you two love doves.' He declared in disgust, grabbed a jacket and headed out, not listening to Bobby's or Rogue's protest.

'You should go after him.' Rogue said to Bobby.

'I'm not his nanny. If he wants to run into his own misery it's his choice. I'm sick of having to put up with him.' Bobby answered exhaustedly: 'I did it too often in the last months.'

'But he's your friend. You should go. He's hurt and he needs you. I'll wait here.' Rogue urged him. Bobby was surprised by the soft understanding in her voice. Sometimes it was as if she understood John better than he did.

'You're sure? I don't want to leave you alone here.'

'Bobby, I'm very able to take care of myself and I'll stay here. It's not like I'm running of to the dam as soon as you're out of the door.' She smiled sadly at him, but he didn't understand, as he did so often and maybe it was his innocence that had drawn her to him, and gave him a little shove.

'Go!'

'John! JOHN!' Bobby yelled, white surrounding him. A harsh wind ripped at his clothes but he didn't feel cold, simply because he never felt cold. His eyes scanned the area feverishly, to him it all looked more or less the same: lots of white with a few dark spots in between that weren't covered yet, but there! One dark spot was moving, away from the jet, so Bobby didn't think long before he stumbled towards it through the snow, yelling John's name. John didn't stop but as Bobby came nearer he could make out John's dark hair and the sweat trousers he'd given him.

'John, please stop.' Bobby jogged the few last metres between them and pulled John around with a hand on his shoulder.

'John, come on, talk to me. What's this all about? And don't tell me that you want to help the others because this is not the direction to the dam.'

'What do you care?' John replied defiantly: 'Go back to your little girlfriend. Bet she waits anxiously for your return, well yours or Wolverine's.'

'Why you are still mad, that I got her and not you? Never saw you so worked up over a girl before.'

'You don't know me.' John stated icily and started to turn around again but Bobby stopped him.

'Then tell me. Tell me what I've done wrong.' Bobby's fingers curled around John's arm, his voice became softer, lower as he asked:

'What can I say or do to make things like they were before?'

'I love you.' John spat out like an insult and shoved Bobby away from him.

'Go. Be disgusted or whatever, but Leave. Me. Alone.'

When Bobby remained to stare shocked at him, John threw him a cruel/triumphant/self-hating look and stalked away through the snow. Bobby came to his senses in time to catch up with him.

'John, please stop. We can talk about this.'

'It's always talking with you, Bobby. Some things can't be talked through, some things need to be left alone and need time until it's dead and buried.'

'But you don't have to leave, we can still be friends, can't we?' Bobby asked desperately:

'You don't have to…argh.'

PAIN

Bobby instinctively yanked his arms and hands around his head before he fell to the ground.

PAIN

He could see that John made a protective move towards him, before he fell too.

PAIN

He could hear screams but he couldn't tell whether they were his own or maybe John's or some else's.

PAIN

Through the haze he could feel hand in his and he gripped it hard because if he let go he was sure his life would end

PAIN

PAIN

PAIN

PAIN

PAIN

Decades after the 'Mutant Genocide' hikers would find the skeletonized remains of two young men near Alkali Lake, whose bony hands lay onto the other. They would be moved to a museum and the world would remember them as the 'Alkali Lake Couple' and write several books about them, but they would never know the truth because no one lived anymore who could remember.

8\. Beautiful Goodbye

Bobby sat outside the tent in the darkness. Everyone else was asleep as usual since no one beside Bobby suffered that badly from insomnia.  
_  
'Have you ever tried not to be a mutant?' _

'We love you despite that Bobby.'

His parents with Ronnie at the window.

The cops shooting Logan.  
Bobby raised his knees to his chest and hid his head between them and his arms, tears slipping easily from his eyes.

He had never felt so alone in his whole life.

'Shh.' Soothing hands rubbed over his shoulders and warm arms slipped over his, embracing him, holding him against a warm, comforting body, rocking him as if he was a little child and leaned into the offered warmth, the offered comfort. His head fit in the hollow between John's neck and shoulder and Bobby could smell his best friend like he hadn't in a long time: lighter fluid, ashes, sweat and something dark and heavy that Bobby couldn't define.

His tears wetted John's skin and shirt and maybe it was uncomfortable to have Bobby's weight pressed against him but his arms stayed steadily around him and the soothing sounds and rocking never stopped.

'It's going to stop one of these days.' John promised him with his lips brushing Bobby's ear:

'Someday you'll wake up and it won't hurt anymore.'

'When?' Bobby whispered through his tears.

'Someday.'

'Can you make it stop?' he sounded like a little, frightened child but he couldn't care less in this moment. All that mattered was what John promised him.

'No, I can't but I can help you.'

Bobby turned his head slightly so that he could look at John, whose eyes seemed to be even darker than the gloominess that surrounded them. Bobby remembered that they all were made out of star dust and maybe John's eyes were made of the star dust that came from the lightless abyss at the edge of the universe, because nothing else could be that dark.

Those abyss eyes looked at him and said:

'Hate them, bobby. You have to hate them. It will hurt as long as you love them, but hate dies away, so you have to hate them.' His lips brushed over Bobby's in a chaste kiss before he whispered:

'Promise me you'll hate them.'

And in this moment between delusion and sleep, where Bobby clung to John's words like to a lifeline, he did.

'I promise.'

John laughed shortly and humourlessly and his arms tightened their hold around Bobby's body. He laid a hand over Bobby's eyes that were red and swollen from crying.

'Sleep Bobby.' He said softly: 'Just sleep.'

And as Bobby relaxed against him, John pressed a kiss on Bobby's hair and whispered words that Bobby could not understand.

'You'll have to hate me, too Bobby.'

'You're always doing what you're told?' John asked with a last knowing look at Rogue and maybe he did know something about her Bobby didn't know but that could wait until later.

'John, wait!'

Bobby caught his best friend a few steps outside the jet. John shivered violently in the icy weather despite his jacket while Bobby felt perfectly fine, well except for the fact that his best friend wanted to leave him.

'What do you want Bobby?'

'I want you to stay. You could get killed in there, no one's going to be impressed by that.'

John shook his head, laughing humourlessly and rolled his eyes.

'I'm leaving, Bobby. No matter what you're saying I'm leaving.'

'But why?'

'I know it was my fault that this thing between us ended and I'm kinda glad Rogue showed up but I still like you and there's a green monster inside my stomach that screams and rattles its scales every time I see you two together. It was okay though, until last night. To know that I could still have you despite everything that happened between us...' John fidgeted nervously from one foot to the other:' As I said I still like you. The whole let's be friends thing was nice but let's face it Bobby it's not the right thing for us.'

'There's nothing I can say to make you stay, right?' Bobby asked, emotions clouding his voice.

'Nothing.' John agreed and brushed a tear from Bobby's cheek.

'Hey.' He said softly: 'Maybe in a few years we can really be friends. It's not forever.'

'No, it's not.' Bobby croaked out with such a lack of conviction that he could have as well said Once you're gone I'll never see you again.

John's hand slid over Bobby's cheek before he leaned in and kissed him. It felt like it had always felt: warm, deep, like falling into the heart of a star, but it didn't last. John slid easily out of Bobby's grasp and stepped away from him.

'Remember Bobby, you promised to hate me.'

9\. The tightrope between life and death

Whether it was the boys shock over Wolverine's mutation or if he just was a really bad marksman they would never know. It also was completely unimportant whether it was the first or the last reason, the only thing that mattered was that he did shoot and that he did miss Wolverine and that he did hit Bobby.

In the first moment after the policeman had fired everyone was confused since Wolverine still stood there, apparently unharmed. Then, like in slow motion Bobby slumped down, falling backwards against John who cried out in surprise as his friend's body connected with his and sent them both to the ground.

Time jumped back into a normal speed when the first scream ripped itself from Bobby's throat and tore through the air.

Blood streamed out of nowhere and ran over his hands, or so it seemed to John, who still lay partly under Bobby. He creeped out under Bobby when he saw the wound: The bullet had hit Bobby in the stomach. The guy had been aiming for Wolverine's head, how in the world did he managed to hit Bobby there? John pressed his hands on the wound, ignoring Bobby's screams and the hands that cramped around his arms.

'You're just gonna stand there?' he yelled at no one in particular: 'Get some help!'

Rogue was the first one to move. She ran inside, probably to call an ambulance. No matter how much they were competing over Bobby, John had always appreciated her instincts. He put a blood smeared hand on Bobby's forehead and pressed his head against his chest in a vain attempt to keep him still.

'It's okay, Bobby.' He tried to calm him. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see Wolverine, running over the lawn towards their car. Probably not the best transportation for a basket case but if the ambulance wouldn't hurry the best chance Bobby had.

'The ambulance will be here in no time.' John reassured him: 'I won't let you die.'

'It hurts.' Bobby sobbed.

'Shh, I know Bobby. I know but you have to believe me okay? We will bring you to a hospital. It'll be okay.'

Rogue appeared back on the porch and kneeled down beside Bobby.

'They're coming.' She said and John nodded.

'You heard that Bobby? The ambulance is coming. Just hold on for a little longer. Can you do that for me?'

Bobby nodded shakily.

Wolverine appeared back on the porch, too, the car's keys in his hand. He was about to say something when a female voice cried out and he could barely grab her before she was out of his reach.

'Bobby, oh God Bobby.' Madeline Drake cried out and pressed her hands over her mouth. Bobby didn't seem to notice her. His eyelids fluttered and threatened to shut. Rogue cupped his face and said with only a hint of panic in her voice:

'Stay awake, Bobby! You have to keep your eyes open, okay.' Bobby barely moved his lips but his grip around John's wrist tightened and John nodded to Rogue.

John gave Mrs. Drake a very dark look, her and the two other members of Bobby's family the stood in the doorway to the porch and looked shocked. If it hadn't been for the injured boy in his arms, he would've burned them all to ashes in mere seconds.

'Who did this?' The boy, Ronnie John remembered, asked.

'You did.' John growled. The boy jerked backwards.

'No, I didn't I never meant I didn't want.' He stuttered. Rogue left her place at Bobby's side and took off her gloves.

'It doesn't matter what you wanted.' She said icily: 'You caused all this.' And with that she placed her hands of each side of Ronnie's face for a moment. And for that moment John wondered if she was till the Rogue who was always so scared about her powers, because in this moment she looked like an ancient vengeance goddess. Ronnie gasped and fell to his knees as she let go of him. They all could hear the sirens of the ambulance.

They sat together in the waiting room. Wolverine had managed to reach Storm and Jean and told them what had happened. Madeline Drake cried in her tissue, while her husband was busy staring at his shoes and Ronnie stared fearfully at Rogue, who sat next to John, her gloved hand in his. She seemed to regret her earlier action. John felt so anxious he could crawl up the walls. He wanted, he needed the comfort only fire could give him but he could neither draw a flame in here nor could he leave the room when a doctor could walk in and give them news about Bobby's condition at any moment now.

By the way.' He said to Rogue: 'It was pretty impressive how you acted in the house. Most people,' he gave the Drake family another dark glance: 'would've either panicked or been petrified.'

'You, too.' She answered: 'You seemed to be completely unfazed like you have done this before.'

'A gentlemen doesn't kiss and tell.' John shot back, talking calmed him down, took his mind from things. When his little sister had been ill, he had told her stories so he could keep his mind from the fact that she was dying.

'I am sorry, are you Robert Drake's family?' A woman in scrubs had appeared in the doorway of the waiting room.

John's and Rogue's hands tightened around each other when they all gathered around the doctor.


	4. Part Four

10.You're always doing what you're told

'Has anyone seen John?' Rogue asked in the panic that floated through the tiny cockpit.

'Pyro?' Logan asked and looked around. Jean's eyes widened in shock.

'He's till in the base.' She said quietly but loud enough for everyone to hear.

Rogue looked panicked and Bobby lunged forward to open the jet but Logan stopped him.

'It's too late. You can't save him.'

When Storm made a movement as if she wanted to say something Logan looked pointedly out of the window: the dam broke, the walls crumbled under the pressure of the enormous amounts of water.

They all turned around when the jet's door opened. Jean was gone.

They were gone. Jean and John were gone, dead, drowned in icy water and crushed by crumbling walls.

The water underneath them had settled down now and looked calm and peaceful. Nothing reminded of the base or the dam. Only a harmless, ice-cold lake in a postcard landscape. They had circled the water in the vain hope that one of them had maybe, somehow survived but of course, no one could survive something like that. Not even an evolved human.

Bobby saw the professor's acceptance; Logan's anger, Scott's grief, Storm's disbelief, Kurt's uncertainty and Rogue's panic but he couldn't say how he felt.

Maybe like a heap of frozen wood that used to burn just minutes ago. He couldn't believe but at the same time he knew. He felt numb inside, a cruel kind of coldness was spreading from his heart through his veins but at the same time he burned with anger.

'Bobby…' Rogue turned towards him, her beautiful eyes shinning with tears. He wasn't sure whether she wanted to be comforted or wanted to comfort him. He couldn't bear either so he shook his head silently and went into the back of the jet to punch a wall. Again and again. His fists turned to ice and he wondered briefly if he would shatter when he was only hit hard enough.

He pressed himself against the wall, frozen tears shattering on the ground with small, hurtful sounds as he whispered over and over again:

'It's all your fault, John.'

Back in the mansion, Bobby went straight into their room. Both, Rogue and Storm had tried to stop him, but the professor had told them to let him go and Bobby was grateful for that.

He closed the door and leaned against it. When he had seen the room the last time John had been asleep, the shark lighter had been lying on his nightstand. Bobby could see the ruffled bedclothes and the mess on John's nightstand he must have made when he grabbed his lighter.

Not even two days ago. Bobby crawled in John's bed and pressed his nose into the pillow. It smelled like John and lighter fluid, but it would fade all too soon.

Bobby didn't leave the room for the next two days. He wasn't hungry, he didn't need to sleep and he could get water from the sink in the bathroom.

He went through John's things.

His clothes first. To Bobby it had always seemed as if John just threw his clothes blindly into the wardrobe but now he could see John's system: socks and underwear in the bottom shelf, the clothes he liked in the middle and the clothes he didn't like so much in the top shelf. In the farthest corner of said shelf Bobby found a white shirt with moth holes in it and covered in dust. It was far too small for John and Bobby wondered why he kept it. When he found a stack of photos wrapped in the shirt, he knew why.

In his desk, Bobby found mostly short stories and essays john had written for literature. Bobby read them all. They all had often enough made fun of john's writings, claiming that they were all fluffy romance novels, nut they weren't. In fact John wrote mostly dark stories, with twisted plots, blood floating the pages and characters as cruel, broken and mad, as Poe couldn't have imagined them better.

There were also photos in the desk drawer, photos from school. Photos of Kitty, Piotr, Jubilee, John himself but mostly they showed Bobby. There were no photos of them together, however, but Bobby knew that plenty of those existed. He wondered where John had put them.

Under the bed and in the nightstand, Bobby found nothing that he didn't know was there, a stack of John's favourite CDs and books, condoms, lube and John's favourite chocolate(dark with chilli), except for one thing: a notebook that was hidden between the mattress and the rack together with a pen and a lighter(of course there was a lighter, Bobby thought that half of America's lighter industry depended on John, on the other hand he doubted that John had paid for them).

He read the notebook on the third day, the first day after their return that he left the room. It wasn't a diary as he first had thought, but it wasn't a novel either. At least Bobby doubted that because the story read itself like it was John's life story.

The boy in the book couldn't remember his mother because she died while giving birth to him, which was why his father drank and abused the boy. He was angry all the time but he didn't hate until he ran away. On the street he learned to hate and to mistrust everyone. Of course they brought him back, first to his father, later than to different foster homes but he always ran away again, most of the times to his best with whom he was secretly in love, but who abandoned him for a girl.

The boy in the story got killed by accident after he had a bad fight with his best friend.

Bobby wondered if John really had have had only one ability and he felt guilty for neglecting John in order to spent more time with Rogue, but John had never given him any clue that he wanted more than friendship or maybe Bobby had just been too blind to see them.

11\. 10 Months later

'I want to come with you.'

Scott turned to see Bobby standing in the garage door, his eyes determined and unyielding.

'No.'

But Bobby didn't listen. He just came nearer and said:

'I know you hear her. Maybe she's alive and maybe, then, John is ,too.'

'That's a lot of maybes. And you're not responsible for John's death.'

'If I'm not then you're not responsible for Jean's, yet we're still here.'

'It's different. I let her go.'

'I let him go, too. In more ways than just letting him leave the jet.' Bobby made a pause:

'I'll go to Alkali Lake whether you let me come with you or not.'

Finally Scott nodded.

Alkali Lake looked different than the last time he had seen it. Even though it was the end of summer Bobby shivered when he saw it and thought of the last time he had been here.

A few trees still broke through the water surface, otherwise nothing remembered of the fact that the lake had been a lot smaller once.

And that was it.

A lake, a few trees, rocks and sand. No John and no Jean.

Bobby felt as if he had just realised that his parachute wouldn't open after he jumped out of the helicopter.

Scott went the one direction and Bobby the other. No wind stirred the surface, only the oncoming mist dulled the clear mirror–like lake and soon took Bobby's sight completely. When his knee connected with a hovering stone, he knew that something was out of place. He turned around, ran along the shore, yelling for Scott as he suddenly stumbled over something soft and wet and fell to the ground.

There was a cough and a voice he thought he'd never hear again, yelled:

'You fucking bastard! Are you blind or what?'

'Jo..John? Johnny?'

'Bobby?' The mist was so thick that, even though John could not be more than one metre away, Bobby could only see his silhouette. He crawled towards it until he could see John right.

His hair was longer, way past his shoulders and he had cuts and bruises all over his body, his clothes were torn, one of his arms looked as if it was broken several times and he had a long gash on one side of his face but he was alive.

Bobby practically bounced him.

'Auu! Iceman! What's your fucking problem? I'm hurt! I broke my fucking arm when those fucking walls gave in and…I'm not dead.' John's eyes widened in shock and he looked at Bobby.

'Why the hell am I not dead? Since I'm pretty sure that I should be dead or this is a really crappy afterlife. Knew I should have gone to church more often.'

Bobby laughed:

'Don't worry. You're not dead though I don't really know why but if you're back that means that Jean's too.'

'She died, too?'

'She rescued the rest of us when the dam broke.' Bobby looked at John for a long moment, then said:

'You're really back.'

'Looks like.'

'I've missed you.'

John rolled his eyes:

'I know that you think that love and sentimentality are the cure for every wrong in the world but some of us, me included, trust doctors and painkillers more.'

While the Professor had wanted to keep Jean in the infirmary for further observation, John was free to go once hank had treated him. With his arm in a sling, lots of plasters over hiss body, seven stitches for his head wound and enough antibiotics and painkillers for the day, John was brought back to their room by Bobby. Beside Ororo, Logan and the Professor no one knew yet that John and Jean were back and they wanted to keep it like that for the next days to give them time.

Back in their room, John eyed his things that were not where they had been when he had left them but still in the room as if he still lived here. When he saw his notebook on Bobby's nightstand he asked:

'You read this?'

Bobby nodded, carefully pulled him close and kissed him. If John was surprised that Bobby did what he did then he didn't show it because he returned the kiss immediately and enthusiastically.

When they parted, John grinned, licked his lips and said:

'Now I see how much you missed me.'

'I'm sorry John.' Bobby said seriously: 'I'm sorry for not noticing how you felt. If I had I would've never gone out with Rogue and none of this would've happened.'

John's eyes flickered from Bobby to the notebook and back to Bobby. And then he did the last thing Bobby had anticipated:

He laughed.

In fact, he laughed so hard that tears spilled over his cheeks as he sat down on his bed with his good arm clutching his stomach.

'You thought…God Bobby you really…' John managed between his laughs. Bobby was irritated to no end.

'What's so funny about that?' He asked uncertainly.

'This', John managed to point to the notebook between sniggering: 'Is just a story I wrote and you really…you really believed it…'

To say that Bobby felt incredibly dump when he sat down next to John would have been an understatement. John's eyes were full of amusement and mock when they found his.

'Is it really so hard for you to tell the difference between a story and reality?'

'How could I have known that this wasn't a version of your life story? You never told me anything about your life before you came here.' Bobby replied defiantly.

'That's called privacy.' John retorted. When Bobby gave him an slightly unbelieving look, he sighed and said: 'Just for your reassurance my family was perfectly fine the last time I called them before I died.'

'Are you really okay with that?'

'Like I said they…'

'I meant with being dead or rather not being dead anymore.'

John shrugged:

'I can't remember anything after the walls came down and I really don't want to know. I think I'll give Jean flowers and chocolate for rescuing me though.'

He grinned and placed his hand over Bobby's:

'So, you missed me then?'

Bobby rolled his eyes but smiled and entangled his fingers with John's as he said:

'Apparently.'


	5. Part Five

12\. Right where I belong

Bobby wrapped his cold hands around Johns to stop him from flicking the lighter permanently. Marie had left the jet but he could still hear her, walking through the snow around the machine.

'Cut that out. You're cold.' John snapped at him but made no attempt to free his hands from Bobby's.

'Don't go.'

'What the hell are you talking about?'

'With Magneto. I heard what he told you.'

'And?'

'Don't. Go.'

'Yeah well, that's not your business anymore, remember?'

'About that…' Bobby hesitated.

'Don't tell me that you made a mistake and are sorry, because I know you're not.'

'A fuck you know.'

'Whatever you say, Drake.'

'You know why I broke up with you? Because you never listened to me, never cared about a single thing I said. It's always Take what you want and give nothing back with you.' Bobby said angrily, not caring that he quoted from a movie. John, however, remained unfazed by Bobby's outbreak.

'You broke up with me because I didn't do what you wanted?' John cocked an eyebrow.

'No! Yes! Yews, because that's what you do when you're in a relationship. Sometimes you do what the other person wants.'

'I would hardly call that little fucking a relationship. Don't overestimate it.'

'it was more than just sex for me.'

'It's not my fault when you can't separate your head from your cock, Bobby.'

Clap. Clap. Clap. Marie stood on the ramp, clapping her hands.

'Too bad I don't have a camera. You two are better than any soap I've ever seen, but could you please stop lying to him and yourself, John? It gives me migraine.'

And with that astonishing statement she was gone again.

Both boys stared at the place where Marie had been mere seconds ago.

'What did she mean that you lie to me?' Bobby finally asked.

'How should I know? Your girlfriend's mad from too much life-sucking.'

'She's not my girlfriend.'

'Whatever.'

Minutes passed where Bobby simply looked at John and then said slowly.

'You're in love with, aren't you?'

'Of course, that's the big secret I kept from you all this time.' John mocked but Bobby just came nearer and sat down next to John again.

'I think you do.'

'Brilliantly observed, Professor Drake, but I'm afraid if you can't state another source for your conclusion than your girlfriend I can't nominate you for the Nobel Prize.'

Bobby smiled one of his the-world-is-a-shiny-place-full-of-puppies-and-ice cream smiles and brushed with his hand over the side of John's face before in the juncture of John's neck and shoulder. He leaned in.

'Your fingers twitch when you're lying.'

'They don't.'

'They do and that's goo because I love you, too, Johnny.'

John sighed and shook his head.

'I guess that means I'm staying, doesn't it?'

But Bobby saw the fine trembling of John's hands.

13\. The rhythm of the war drums

Two people left the main room after the news announced 'The Cure'. Marie went to Ororo's office, relief showing on her face.

Bobby took the other direction, heading for his and John's room, his face twisted in a mixture of concern and fear.

John stood in their room, looking around as if he was searching for something or maybe as if he was saying goodbye to the place where he had lived for the past four years. The backpack where he kept his possessions lay on his bed.

'You're not wasting time.' Bobby said resigned.

'I prefer actions to talking.' John responded indifferently.

'I know.' Bobby took a breath.

'So, this is goodbye, then?'

'Maybe. I could write you a postcard when this is all over.'

'Maybe when this is all over I'm going to have a different address.'

'I'm not asking you to wait for me.'

'I know.'

Another pause, then:

'What if there's battle between us and them?'

'Then we fight.' A smug grin broke out on John's face:

'And you'll lose like always.'

'I beat you once.'

'Only with Piotr's help.'

'He's on our side.'

'I'm not the only recruit Magneto has. Piotr might be too busy too help you.'

'I could always do this.' Bobby crossed the distance between them and kissed John. The kiss was long, slow, internalising what they may not get in the near or in the future at all again.

'Another reason I have to leave.' John panted when they finally had to part but stayed within centimetres of each other.

'Yeah?'

'Yeah, if I stay here I'm going to convert the school's poster boy into someone like me and I can't let that happen to you, can I? One of us has to take responsibility, believe in the goodness of human kind and save kittens from trees.'

But Bobby didn't joke back, he just stared at John, who rolled his eyes.

'Don't get all sappy on me, Drake. It's not like I was diagnosed with some deathly illness and only have a day left to live.'

'You might as well. I know you're not coming back. As soon as you're out of that door I'll never see you again, right?'

'Probably, but hey, you made me stay two years longer than I planned. Consider yourself successful.'

John sighed as Bobby's expression id not change.

'I'm only saying this once so you better listen to me: I love you but I'm not going to let anyone take the most precious thing I have away from me. With that Phoenix thing running wild it's only a matter of time until they do, so don't take it personal, okay?'

Bobby nodded and said:

'I love you, too.'

'Good.' John took his backpack:

'See you on the battlefield, ice cube.'

'It's iceman!'

'Whatever.'

And he was gone.


End file.
